Operation Spring
by Blizdal
Summary: When the Winter Soldier leaves the Smithsonian he feels a bit…upset. Okay, he is furious.
1. Chapter 1

"Operation Spring is a go. Hail Hydra."

"Hail Hydra."

* * *

><p>When the Asset leaves the Smithsonian a woman passes by him, and with a whispered word his mind goes blank (his body leaves without him).<p>

* * *

><p>The Asset blinks, the fog in his mind clears and the woman smiles.<p>

"There you are."

He thinks her teeth are very white.

He will rip them out.

"The doctors will be here soon." She says and it fills him with terror but there is also rage in him now, all encompassing, terrible rage, because he has seen his face, on a panel in an exhibit, and it had a name.

His fury must be physical because she stumbles away from him, her eyes impossibly wide. He hears the guards around him raise their weapons and sees the beginning of a word-

_a magical word_

- on her mouth, and knows, viscerally, that he can't let her talk. He can't ever let her talk.

He explodes from the chair and hits her in the throat with his right hand. Her body is already half way to the floor when the first bullets ping, deflected with his left arm.

One of the men is already dead by then and one of his guns is in the Asset's hand and he

_fires_

_fires _

fires.

* * *

><p>Steve sits in a chair next to her bed and takes her hand.<p>

"Have you ever heard of the Winter Soldier?"

She freezes and feels a chill run down her spine.

"You have." He notes. "I was told that not many believe that he exists."

"He is a bogeyman. There could be many operatives behind one name."

"You think he is real."

She remembers Howard's mangled body squeezed between the car parts and a glint of metal in the distance. Some of the fear must show on her face because Steve immediately changes the subject.

"Bucky is alive."

She sighs. She knows where this is going. She remembers the first time Barnes was alive when everyone wrote him off as dead. Steve became a hero then and she wonders, fleetingly, what he will become now. She has faith.

"I will find him." He says and she nods, not doubting him. It is only then that she realizes that something is wrong. She must be dreaming. She loses and gains years in a matter of moments, but some things are impossible no matter what year it is. Barnes is dead, not captured or lost.

"Steve." She says, gently, because she can't stand to see him hurt, dream or not.

"Zola did something to him. He survived the fall." He interrupts her and he sounds grateful, for just a moment, before his face crumbles and he hides it, laying his forehead on the back of her hand.

Barnes was in enemy territory when he fell. He was a soldier and he was injured. That can't have ended well for him. But if he is alive it means he survived and learned to cope.

"They brainwashed him and made him forget who he was." Steve says later and she pretends not to notice the way his voice wobbles or the way he obviously avoids even mentioning that that was just the tip of the iceberg.

She doesn't say that she isn't surprised, just squeezes his hand.

"They put him on ice when they didn't need him." His words start calm but he ends them with a snarl.

He didn't change the subject at all, she realizes, and it shakes her to the marrow of her weak, age-old bones. "Cryostasis." She whispers. It was one of the theories about the Winter Soldier. One no one took seriously. Cryostasis technology doesn't work yet.

Except that it obviously does.

"Oh, Steve."

He looks at her and his eyes are filled with hate. "They are going to pay."

"They should. I'm sorry I can't get you a plane this time." She says apologetically and he smiles, weakly, through all that hate, and kisses her hand.

"I saw the news reports. That was him you fought against, wasn't it?"

"I could have killed him." He says and he must have imagined having done it because he looks horrified.

"_He_ could have killed _you_." She says. She knows which option of the two she prefers.

He looks away and it leaves her gutted because-

"Steve." She says aghast. "Steve."

She shakes his arm when he refuses to meet her eyes, and wishes he didn't when he finally does.

"I let go of my shield in the middle of the fight." He says, without regret, almost proud, and she wants to hit him hard.

She takes a deep breath instead. "Well, you're still alive."

Steve beams and she thinks he is a fool. He always is when it comes to Barnes.

When he leaves, she stares at the door until she forgets that he is alive.

Later-

_Hours, days, weeks?_

-she wakes up and sees a glint of metal in the dark. Her heart beats wildly and her hand reaches for a weapon she no longer keeps close. She remembers Howard, broken and dead and-

"You are Agent Carter." Winter Soldier says and the title confuses her. Throws her back in time and makes her think she is young before the tremor in her hand catches her up and

-she remembers Steve's hate filled eyes.

"Sergeant Barnes." She greets, hoarsely. He doesn't react.

Minutes pass. She waits for the guards to barge into her room but they do not show up. Barnes is leaning against the wall, his cap in his right hand, his left by his side, causal, ready. He doesn't take his eyes off of her. They are blue and pretty and cold. No bullet deadens Barnes's eyes. No sniper saves her.

She prays for it and prays that Steve never finds out.

She wonders if the agents watching her are dead. She sees no blood on his clothes but she knows better than to think that means anything. She knows the Winter Soldier's file inside and out. It's a list of names of maybe-victims, details of his maybe-crimes and few grainy pictures of a man, maybe-him. She remembers sending agents after this man and remembers none of them coming back.

She stares at his metal hand. The rest of his arm is covered by the jacket and she is at the same time grateful and disappointed.

She sees no obvious weapons on him but it's not like he needs them. He _is_ a weapon. The thought makes the fear in her rise, but it's the sudden onslaught of pity that makes her breath hitch, because he used to be a _man_.

He reacts to the sound by tilting his head, like a dog-

-like a _hound_, she corrects herself immediately as she tries to breathe more evenly.

She wants to speak but has no idea what to say. She never knew him well. She remembers him more as a shadow next to Steve but his stillness strikes her as familiar and his eyes are still loud. She averts her own.

Barnes leaves, after awhile, without another word said between them. She relaxes when he's gone and her entire body hurts from holding still for so long.

She dreams that night.

_She goes to the Stork and turns heads._

_She waits for her dance, but Steve is dead dead dead._

_Then the world before her eyes goes white and black and all the other people in the club fall de-_

_Steve is sitting at the table, in shades of grey. There is blood on his shield, dripping red. He is wiping it off and although the shield gets cleaner, the star stays red. It looks wrong but Peggy can't remember why._

"_I hope you catch him." She tells him, honestly, because while that blade is made of flesh and blood (and metal) it is still a blade but it is also the sound of a train that makes Steve flinch and-_

_his small bones rattle_

_-he looks smaller than a moment ago._

* * *

><p>The Asset leaves the room and the old woman and puts his cap back on his head. He swallows, trying to chase away the bitter tang of disappointment. He doesn't remember her.<p>

He had hoped that seeing someone he knew before he became the Asset might knock something loose in his head, fill the holes in his memory. He was able to surmise from the exhibit that they were merely acquaintances and that she was probably not the best choice for this. But there is only one other person from his past that is still alive and he is not ready to see Steve yet.

His mobile pings and he takes it out. Steven Rogers is sending a message to Sam Wilson. He reads it and deletes it afterwards. They've found the bodies. He had though they would find them sooner. He didn't exactly hide them.

He thinks about staying and letting himself be captured but he discards the thought quickly.

He has to move.

His mobile pings again.

_You were unauthorized to read that message. _

He blinks, his fingers hovering above the keyboard. He doesn't recognize the number of the sender. His former handlers had not warned him that something like this can happen when he clones a mobile number.

Another ping. _You will not read another._

He crushes the phone with his metal hand and drops it in the hallway. He has to hurry.

* * *

><p>Half a town away, JARVIS makes a note of another attack on Captain Rogers's phone. Considering the fact that this one was in part successful, he notifies his Creator.<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

"She's missing teeth," Sam notices, crouched over the woman's body.

"Here they are," Steve says, a few feet away and Sam looks at him, slowly, as if afraid what he'll find.

Steve sounds indifferent.

"He must have been very angry," Steve says, calmly, as if there aren't teeth next to his booth instead of in someone's jaw.

Sam rises and goes to him. "Steve."

"Do you see that chair?"

Sam does. It is mangled in places but it still looks like the most ominous chair he had ever seen.

"That is where they killed him, over and over again." One of the arm restraints is on the floor, obviously ripped off and Steve kicks it with all his might.

It ends up embedded in the wall.

Sam stares at it, "That was quite a kick."

"Thank you. I imagined it was Zola's head."

Sam knows when to back off. "Can we leave now?"

"Yes," Steve says and they do.

They exit that room, and the next one, and the hallway and Sam resolutely doesn't count the dead.

Steve steps over them as if they were logs.

* * *

><p>There are no surveillance cameras in the inside of the house, or in front of it but there is a car in the garage and it was caught on camera in a nearby street. They manage to trace its path backwards and it leads to the Smithsonian.<p>

They watch as the woman exits the car and goes to the entrance. On the stairs she passes a man and Steve wouldn't think anything of it except that he stops and doesn't move. His face is hidden by the cap he is wearing and his hands are in his pockets. He looks eerie, standing so still in a crowd of moving people. He only starts walking again when another man comes to him and supposedly greats him.

The two men go to the car, enter it and drive off.

"That was Bucky," Steve says, full of conviction.

"We can't see his face," Sam hates playing the devil's advocate, "and it's not like we can follow that car all the way to the house. There are minutes we don't have on camera. Maybe it's not him."

"Who else could it be? He went to see the exhibit and they caught him."

"He didn't seem _caught_ to me. He went on his own."

"Maybe they threatened him."

"With what? He could have easily escaped. I've seen that man fight, Steve. There is no way that guy could have restrained him. If he left, it was on his own volition."

Steve shakes his head, "I don't believe that."

"He is Hydra. Brainwashed or not, he is Hydra."

"He dragged me out of the river."

"And left. He has been working for them for a very long time. Saving you doesn't mean he is not working for them anymore."

"He killed a bunch of Hydra agents and destroyed the chair they used to control him."

Sam can't deny that. "You read the file Natasha gave you. It has happened before. They always get him back."

"We just have to get to him before they do."

"Fine. Let's say he is not on their side anymore. What then? He has his own side? That does not tell us much. You could still be on opposite sides. His side is not necessarily yours."

"It is."

Sam feels chills at the simple truth he hears in those two words.

Steve looks at him, resolutely, "I know him."

"You _knew_ him."

"Some things never change. Don't worry, Sam." he hesitates a little before making the reference, "I'm not suddenly going to go to the Dark side. I just have to help him." He turns to the recording and lets it play again. "I want to show you something." He stops the recording when the unknown man and Bucky start walking towards the car. He turns to Sam, "Did you see that?"

"See what?"

"The way he walks. It is different before and after he stops."

"So?"

"I'm no sure yet. It means something."

"It is just a walk."

"No. There's something there. He wouldn't have gone quietly. I know it. _That woman did something to him_."

Sam remembers the corpse with the gaping mouth and thinks that she is lucky that she is already dead. The expression on Steve's face is ugly, twisted and black. He didn't know that Steve could hate so much, but that is only to be expected. Sam didn't know Steve when he was little, frail and running mostly on anger, both righteous and not. Back then, Steve hated more openly.

Not all the girls that avoided him then did so because he was small and sickly. Some saw the bruises on his knuckles and the shade of hate on his face.

Some just saw that he was quick to anger and quick to throw a punch.

* * *

><p>He is dancing with a pretty girl and when he smiles at her she blushes. After the next spin he pulls her just a bit closer and she looks at him underneath her lashes. One corner of her mouth turns up, in a half smile, and anticipation settles low in his gut. The beat speeds up and-<p>

_Knock knock_

-he opens his eyes to find himself in his hotel room with the television on, playing oldies goldies, the familiar beat thrumming in his veins.

_Knock knock knock knock knock_

He grabs a gun and rises from the bed. He opens the door a bit and stares silently at the dodgy looking guy on the other side.

"Rent," the guy says and waits. His eyes dart to the side, trying to see inside the room and Bucky moves slightly to block the view completely. The guy notices and gives him the stink eye. His eyes soften when Bucky pulls out the money.

The guy counts it twice and leaves, but not without throwing another quick glance at what little he can see of the room.

Bucky closes the door and leaves the gun on the nightstand. He falls on the bed, face first. The television is still on, a different song playing, and he grabs blindly for the remote and switches it off. He hates that song.

His arm whirs louder than it should and he forces himself to get up. It is obviously not going to fix itself. He shakes it and something inside it jingles. He sighs. He really needs to take care of that.

He pries a plate open and looks inside but it looks different than he remembers. He is not surprised. The outer shell of his arm may not have changed much since they put it on him but the inside of it has been upgraded several times, and he was rarely asked for input or instructed in how to do maintenance. Even if he had been instructed, the wipes took the knowledge away. He hopes that one day he will remember something about it. He hates not being able to fix it himself.

He leans down to take a closer look and his hair falls in his face. He tugs at it, annoyed. It really needs to go.

After a lengthy inspection, he puts the plate back in its place. He thinks he knows what the problem is, but he is not absolutely certain and he doesn't have the proper tools to work with. His metal arm is connected to his spine. He is not willing to rummage around in it and risk doing serious damage to himself.

* * *

><p>"Are you going to eat that cake or should I eat it for you?"<p>

"Your blood sugar-"

"Is fine."

"You dirty old liar, I've seen your test results."

"Who are you calling old?!"

"You are eighty years old!"

"I am in my prime."

Bucky glances at the table where a group of old ladies is sitting. Two of them are arguing loudly while the other two are eating their cakes peacefully, obviously accustomed to their friends arguing. The fifth one keeps looking in his direction. She doesn't look away when he catches her, just winks saucily.

He winks back.

* * *

><p>"No, no, the asset…"<p>

_Asset._ He lifts his head as if called, only to see two accountants in a heated discussion. His fingers tighten on the coffee cup. _James Barnes, not the Asset_, he chants inside his own mind. _James Barnes_. He takes an angry sip and the coffee scalds his tongue. He mutters profanities under his breath. The old ladies gasp as one and stare at him disapprovingly.

His look turns sheepish and he smiles at them disarmingly which makes all but one of them soften. The last one rises her nose up in the air indignantly, "I never-"

"Let it go, Martha. You say a lot worse when you get going."

"Not in public!"

"Like hell you don't! Just yesterday you told Cynthia she was a-"

"Cynthia does not count!"

"Of course she does!"

With their attention diverted away from him, he looks out on the street. He listens with half an ear to them squabbling.

"_Stop trying to change the subject! And don't think I haven't seen you winking at him. You are weak on pretty boys. Admit it."_

_She shrugs, "There are worse things to be weak on."_

"_You _slut_."_

The doors of the coffee shop open, the bell connected to them jingles and another old woman comes in. The others wave her over and she starts slowly towards them, her walking stick making _thump thump_ sound on the floor as she goes. The smile on her face is wide and when she glances to the side and spots him it freezes on her face.

He grins, just to see her blanch.

She is older than the last time he has seen her but he remembers the green of her eyes and those long fingers digging inside his metal arm. She used to laugh when he cried.

He has questions and a malfunctioning arm. He hopes her hands don't shake.

* * *

><p>They don't.<p>

He admires it and hates that he does. It claws viciously at his insides making him want to strap her down and play around in hers until she is a sobbing mess, but he knows she would not cry.

He thinks she would have smiled.

She finishes working on his arm, puts the tools away and looks at him scornfully.

He leans towards her and she quickly leans away from him, knocking down her cane in the process. It clatters loudly.

"They will catch you," she spits venomously. "They will wipe you and put you back on ice."

"No. They will not."

"You said the same thing the last time."

He goes still and she laughs mockingly. "They always get you back in the end. Of course, they might just put you down this time. That wasn't an option before, but things have changed."

He stands up and takes out his gun.

"It will be a pity," she continues, "so much effort and money had gone into maintaining you, but everything has its expiry date."

He aims, "Yes, it does."

"My grandson-"

"I won't touch him if he stays out of my way," he confirms, reluctantly. Her grandson is Hydra but so low on the ladder as to be almost insignificant. Not worth his time.

He can't kill them all, after all.

_I can_, the thought comes unbidden but frank, and his arm recalibrates and whirs. It sounds like it's hissing _yes_.

He studies her expression. He can tell that she believes him; the relief is clear on her face and he wishes to go back on his word and hunt him down just because he can.

He won't.

Her eyes are hateful when they meet his own and blank when the bullet goes between them.


	3. Chapter 3

AN: warnings for a mention of suicide and implied torture, otherwise it's just the usual canon-typical violence.

AN2: I haven't watched the last few episodes of season 1 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, let alone the season 2, and I haven't even started watching Agent Carter yet so if I am Jossed on certain things then I'm Jossed.

* * *

><p>He answers his phone with a clipped: "Rogers."<p>

"Having trouble finding the answer button, gramps? It took you so long to answer I almost gave up."

"Tony."

"Steve."

"What do you want?"

"Why so grumpy, Cap? Did I interrupt your evening nap? Or-"

"I don't have time for this."

"Still haven't caught up with your war buddy?"

"…What do you want?"

"Wow, I can feel your hostility all the way here."

"Stark!"

"Fine… _spoilsport_. JARVIS caught someone spying on you. They cloned your phone."

"What?"

"They cloned your phone. That's when they-"

"I know what it means. I thought you said that no one can do that to the Stark phones," the barb hit home, Steve thinks gleefully as he enjoys the silence on the other end.

Tony clears his throat, "Hydra has good tech," he admits grudgingly.

"Hydra?"

"I suggest you ask Margaret for details. JARVIS traced the signal back to her house."

He forgets sometimes that Tony has known her since he was a child. "Why would Hydra be at Peggy's house?"

"Why wouldn't Hydra be at Carter's house? She is one of the founders of S.H.I.E.L.D. She has guards for a reason."

"Is she- "

"She's fine. She's not hurt. When I talked to her she didn't even know that there was anything wrong. She was surprised to hear that her guards were knocked out. You know what her memory is like. We'll just have to ask her again later."

"Why would they leave her alive? Why not kill the guards? Hydra is not known for their mercy."

"A phone was found crushed in front of her room," Tony says, like it answers all his questions.

It doesn't. "Crushed?"

"With a metal hand, perhaps? I'm just guessing, of course, but I am very good at guessing. Don't you have a buddy with a metal arm? I think I remember you having a buddy with a metal arm."

"Tony."

"You definitely have a buddy with a metal arm. I would like to take a look at that metal arm."

Steve hangs up.

"What happened?" Sam asks.

The phone rings and Tony's name flashes on the screen. Steve doesn't pick up.

"We need to go see Peggy. Bucky was there. He must have found out about her from the exhibit."

"He didn't hurt her?"

Steve glares.

"It is a valid question," Sam says, unrepentant.

Steve folds in on himself, defeated, "Yeah, it is," he admits, reluctantly.

* * *

><p>"Barnes was here," Peggy tells him when Sam leaves the room. "I didn't want to tell Howard when he called."<p>

Steve doesn't correct her but she catches the look on his face, "I remember it was Anthony, now," she says ruefully.

"What happened?"

"I woke up and he was here."

"Did he hurt you?" Steve asks and the words sound fragile, like they barely survived being uttered.

"No."

Steve slumps down as all the tension leaves his body. "What did he want?"

She thinks back to the way Barnes watched her, "To remember."

She shakes her head when Steve looks at her hopefully. His eyes dim. "It is not surprising. We didn't know each other well," she reminds him gently.

He sighs, disappointed.

"He looked well," she says "healthy," and more hesitantly, "he didn't look all that different than I remember him."

Steve looks at her questioningly.

"You are used to him treating you like a friend."

"I don't understand."

"He and I were never friends."

"But-"

"We were courteous to each other."

"He was a good man." Steve says, defensively.

"He was," she agrees, "and perhaps given more time we would have become friends. The point is, people don't treat everyone the same. You are not used to him treating you as anything other than a friend. You haven't seen that side of him. I have. And he may be a bit colder now, a bit more distant, and the arm may be a bit jarring but I still recognize him."

"Yeah?"

"Yes. Not all is lost, but he _was_ brainwashed and mindwiped. It is not going to be easy and you need to be careful."

"I know."

"Look at it from the bright side, Steve. He didn't kill me or any of my guards."

Steve's laughter is a bit hysterical, "I'm supposed to be happy that he didn't kill a bunch of people? It is supposed to be normal not to go around killing people."

"Not for assassins it's not."

* * *

><p>There are two Hydra agents in the room next to Bucky's, three on the street and six in the building across from the hotel. They think he doesn't know that they are there.<p>

They don't see him stroke the handle of his knife (they can't feel the swallowed bile as it burns his throat).

They plan to attack him soon and the horrible truth is that he is going to kill them all.

He's not sorry.

He's not sorry.

The blood gets between the plates of his arm and he hates cleaning it. That's all.

He's not sorry.

_He's not._

* * *

><p>He is systematic and fast, and before they even realize what is going on, it is over.<p>

_They should have sent a sniper_, he thinks as he rummages through their things. He finds drugs, the ones that actually work on him and knows why there was no sniper. They are still trying to bring him in alive.

He wonders how many more he needs to murder before they go in for the kill.

He is disposing of the bodies when he notices that one of them has a mustache and it reminds him of Dernier and-

_Steve looks at him and there is guilt in his eyes and an apology. No regret._

_There is blood caked under Bucky's fingernails and he thinks he can hear his knife croon a lament but it is only Dernier, singing softly in French. _

"_It's about scantily clad women," Jones responds when asked but everyone knows it isn't true. Those songs never sound that sad._

* * *

><p>He hasn't been wiped since the day the helicarriers fell. He knows, somehow, that this is the longest he's ever been awake and without regular wipes. His handlers always avoided this. It never takes him long to start remembering, to start to want and think and question, to realize he is <em>not quite right<em>.

brokenmendedwrong

The serum in his blood always tries to heal the damage they make, but it can only do so much. It can't help him deal with what he remembers.

Sometimes his head hurts, like someone has taken a hammer to it, and the memory blooms and he sees it as if it were happening right now. Sometimes it is gentle, like when he orders a coffee and knows he wants it black. There is no pain, just certainty, like it was something he has always known. Only, he remembers he didn't. Just two days ago he passed a coffee shop and the smell made him curious. He remembers not knowing what it was.

* * *

><p>He sees a billboard advertising a travel agency, all blue oceans and green palm leaves and remembers sand burning his feet and the metal of his arm heating up. He remembers standing in the water, letting the waves wash off the blood, the red getting lost in all that blue.<p>

His handler had approached him cautiously, his weapon drawn and his arm shaking slightly. He had waited for the Soldier to turn to him. Bucky remembers being grateful.

He remembers Anton fondly.

He thinks it as Антон, he realizes suddenly, realizes that he has been thinking in Russian for awhile now. His thoughts switch from English to Russian, and sometimes they are a mix of both. Sometimes he swears in German and it bothers him that he cannot remember where he learned it, whether it was while he was strapped to a table in Austria or in Berlin, decades later, for a mission.

Maybe it was when Steve closed the door behind him and the bound German soldier spat in his face. He sang his secrets in the end, through tears, snot and blood.

He relieves that day in his dreams. It always starts with him already in the room; Hans's scared eyes following his every move. Before, German language has always sounded harsh to Barnes-

_James Buchanan, Sergeant, 3-2-5-5-7-0-3-8_

-but Hans makes it sound soft. Near the end he pleads in whispers, gently, with his eyes closed.

When Bucky is done, he exits the room and finds Steve waiting, expectant. Once he reports, Steve leaves, hurriedly, without a backward glance. The information is time sensitive. Bucky understands. He really does.

(Steve never once looks inside the room.)

Bucky slides down to the floor. Indefinite amount of time later Morita drags him away. And the world around Bucky may be tilting but Morita's hold on his upper arm is firm and his voice is steady when he says "Let's go, Sarge."

Behind the wall, Hans's body cools.

Later, just in time for dinner, Falsworth and Dum Dum return shivering and dirty, with shovels in their hands and Bucky freezes for a second and then his brain restarts and thinks _Hans_, and he runs, runs, runs, away from sight and falls to his knees and pukes his guts out. He hears footsteps behind him but by the time he turns around there is no one there. But-

_there is roaring in his ears, like lions woken up, angry_

-he recognizes the footprints in the snow and something horrible rises in his chest. It's heavy and it burns and he doesn't think it is hate.

(He thinks it is hate.)

Steve comes to him later, long after Dernier has stopped singing and everyone is asleep. "I'm sorry," he chokes out like it means a thing (anything).

_You asked me to cross a line, Steve, and I did,_ he wants to say, _I wish you had asked somebody else, _but he knows Steve couldn't have asked anyone else. You could have done it yourself,he thinks.

"_You're _the one who wanted to go to war," he accuses instead and there is frost in his voice, winter creeping, and Steve looks at him with big eyes, lost and young. "On _your_ terms," Bucky scrubs a hand over his face, trying to chase away the viciousness he knows is there, "but there are no terms here," he says, sadly.

"I know." _I know that now _

Steve sounds despondent, but it doesn't take him long to strengthen his shoulders and for the glint in his eyes to become determined. Bucky wants to cry.

He thinks, bleakly, the higher you fly, Steve, the further I have to fall.

He doesn't say anything because he knows that he is sometimes too harsh on Steve. He chose to follow him, after all, wherever he led. It is not Steve's fault that the path they walk is not clean.

It is not Steve's fault that they will all be filthy in the end.

The next time he fires his rifle, the shot echoes inside his chest, following the beat of his heart, spreading the cold inside of him. _Once you get frozen inside you can never get warm again_, his mother told him when he had asked her why his uncle jumped into the river and didn't swim.

He fires again and remembers his uncle's smiling eyes the day before he let the water swallow him whole.

He falls, days later.

*/*

They drag him through the snow; his stump leaves a bloody trail no one will follow.

* * *

><p>He wakes up with a whimper, always-<p>

_always _

-smelling winter.

*/*

(it smells clean)


End file.
